I found my long lost family on a holiday to the US – story sold to Daily Mirror

Pat Janaway’s story about how she discovered eight brothers and sisters appears in the DAILY MIRROR today.

When Pat and John Janaway emailed me last week to see if I could sell their story of how they spent 50 years trying to track down Pat’s family, I thought it was a wonderful tale.
Pat was a war baby and only ever knew she was conceived in 1944 – the result of an affair her mum had with a US army officer. Her mum rarely spoke of what happened and when aged 17 Pat married John, the pair set about trying to find him.
The search that followed over the next half a century is a story in itself! Pat tells how she wrote to various authorities in the US to try to find her father. Over the years she and John sent hundreds of letters, made tens of phone calls and spent hours researching leads on the internet. All were to no avail.
By the time they went on holiday to the US they’d given up hope. But then they found a museum next to their hotel and incredibly found the photo of her dad that was to eventually lead her to finding she has eight brothers and sisters.

The couple were delighted to see their story in the Mirror today. John emailed this morning: “Thank you for the professional way you set out our story in the Mirror.”

Do you have an uplifting story to sell to a magazine or newspaper? Find out if I can sell your story here.

Alison Smith-Squire

Alison Smith-Squire is a writer, journalist and media agent selling exclusive real life stories to newspapers, magazines and TV. She owns the sell my story website Featureworld.co.uk, which was set up to help ordinary people sell their stories to the press.

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